Overwhelmed

Another topic that won't be new to anyone. I'm feeling it, right now. I have my first ever writing conference (only attending) Friday night and Saturday. I have some shopping and packing to do Sunday morning, and then we drive five hours to Fort McMurray where I will be offline all day for five days straight. (Thank GOD the hotel has free internet. My nights won't be the same.) While in Fort McMurray we will be coordinating training and orientation schedules at four different oil sands companies, making sure we have the proper documentation for each, and finding out where they've moved all the roads since September when we were there last.

That might SOUND funny, but it is completely literal and true. We already know one road we used last year is now being mined and no longer exists. Two years ago they moved the main highway in the middle of one of our trips. There's no real warning, just... detour.

In between that I'm panicking a little over the fact that my book is going to be published in the next few weeks, but I still don't really know what I'm doing! I know I'll need to help publicize it, but without a fixed date, without knowing how wide the release will be, I'm kinda flying blind. It doesn't reduce the stress.

AND I have three WIPs that I haven't given the proper attention in the last few weeks. I finally made a break on one, but haven't had time to get back to it since that night (Monday). I haven't had a chance to try to put the same push into the other. At least those nights in the hotel should give me a chance to do something there. Plus all the drive time is beautiful for brainstorming and writing in my notebook.

Then I come back only to run out to a BBQ and football game followed by another flight to McMurray and back the day after. sigh I'm tired just thinking about it.

Oddly, writing it all out helps. It makes the list concrete, it gives me checkboxes. I'm already feeling a bit better. And one more thing I get to check off? My photo for the book. I've been trying to coordinate with the totally under-appreciated Olav Rokne and he came over tonight and caught these for me.

Preference? :D Tell me about your schedule. How was last week? Feeling crunched? Do lists help? Do you like checking things off? Tell me!